Exploring art events in and around NYC

July 2009

07/30/2009

11 Rivington has a group show titled Character Generator in which 9 artists incorporate text into their chosen medium - paper, sculpture, photography and video. According to the show's press release, the gallery, "brings together a select group of works by artists who continue the 'turn to language' in contemporary art practice to highlight subtle intersections between the political, the poetic, and the personal." On view until August 14th. Read more at elevenrivington.com.

Rachel Uffner Gallery on Orchard Street currently has a group show called Human Arrangement which focuses on the relationship between a painting's subject and its context. Seven artists' works are represented. My favorites in the group were Mamie Tinkler'sUnmade Bed and Greg Parma Smith's two untitled pieces. Through August 8th. Learn more at racheluffnergallery.com.

Lisa Cooley Fine Art wins for the most cynical show title (which for a jaded curmudgeon like me, makes it my fave) - On the Pleasure of Hating: Love turns, with a little indulgence, to indifference or disgust; Hatred alone is immortal. Phew! The title is taken from English essayist, William Hazlitt's piece, The Plain Speaker (1823). Six artists present works that interpret the notion that hatred can be pleasurable. Surprisingly, none of the works seemed very dark or angry - but maybe I just didn't notice, being a jaded curmudgeon and all. On view until August 22nd. Read more at lisa-cooley.com.

Located on a very busy block on East Broadway, sitting atop an office building housing various Chinese businesses, the Rental Gallery is a hidden treasure. The gallery's name, "Rental," says it all. The space allows other galleries throughout the world to "rent" its exhibition space enabling the "renting" galleries to exhibit in New York City, even without having a permanent space here.

Currently on view is Don't Panic! I'm Selling My Collection, a great exhibition culled from anonymous private collections, featuring works by big names like Takashi Murakami, Richard Prince, Hope Atherton, Ryan McGinness, Elizabeth Peyton, Marilyn Minter, David Salle, Andy Warhol, and more. I took a few pics below. Don't Panic is on view until August 15th. See more at rental-gallery.com.

Unfortunately, I also tried to check out Raster-Noton: The Shop at e-flux on Essex Street. I thought the show was up until the 31st, but when I stopped by on Tuesday, the nice fellas taking down the show told me that, well, they were taking down the show :( Raster-Noton is a German experimental record label. They had set up a non-retail, record shop installation at the e-flux space. I'm bummed I missed it because record shops are such a rarity these days... Check out e-flux.com and check out raster-noton.net.

The 6-month-old, Stanton Street gallery, Scaramouche (formerly Fruit and Flower Deli), presents its third group show, Snooze. Snooze, curated by Marco Antonini, features 7 young American and European artists interpreting those drowsy, hazy moments between sleep and consciousness and/or dream and reality.

Upon entering the small space, you first notice Alessandro Dal Pont's minimalist character on the floor consisting of a mat/blanket and two turned-over glasses placed where the character's eyes should be. Though already dead when I visited, the glasses each housed a fly, which, when alive, flew around inside the glasses mimicking rapid eye movement (REM), the fluttering of the eyes when asleep/dreaming.

I next noticed Patrick Meagher's two perpetually spinning clocks. One clock's background featured the dreaded rainbow-colored disk you get on a Mac while waiting for a file to download. The other clock featured the even-more-dreaded hourglass that appears on other operating systems. Opposite Meagher's clocks, was Evan Roth's slowly composed pattern he made using repeated mouse strokes and clicks and then transferred on to canvas. Both of these works reflect on the unreal, dream-like time spent while working on a computer.

Ivan Petrovic and Bettina Cohnen both offer mysterious, surreal photographs of dream-like states, Petrovic in black-and-white and Cohnen in cinematic color. Alessandro Roma's collage features a painting layered under paper which is layered under sheer, textured fabric, reminiscent of a starry, nighttime sky.

In keeping with the theme of the exhibit, visitors with questions are encouraged to call Antonini between the hours of 6:30am-8:30am, to catch the curator in those moments teetering between consciousness and sleep. Snooze is on view until August 1st. See Scaramouche website here. Special thanks to Geraldine at Scaramouche for the pictures below :)

One of Aleksandar Zograf's prints

Bettina Cohnen's surreal photos

Evan Roth's computer-generated canvas

From left to right: Alessandro Roma's collage, another of Zograf's prints (above door), Patrick Meagher's clocks, one of Ivan Petrovic's b&w photos, and Alessandro Dal Pont's minimalist character (on the ground).

07/29/2009

Wandering around the Lower East Side this grey and humid afternoon, I passed by the windows of the Michali Fine Art Gallery on Orchard Street and stopped dead in my tracks. On the back wall is a vibrant 55.1" x 88.2" oil and spray-paint canvas by Scottish artist, Peter Doig. The 1983 work, Manhattan, features a colorful cityscape of NYC showcasing The Statue of Liberty, The Empire State Building, The Chrysler Building, yellow taxi cabs, a traffic jam, and a crazed businessman. This early Doig piece would be a wonderful addition to any New York City institution's collection. See my photo below. Learn more about Doig at Artnet.

Manhattan, 1983

Also on view at Michali Fine Art is The Meaning of Life, a show featuring the work of New York-based artists Hedi Ferjani and Scot Thompson.

Three pieces are exhibited by Colorado native, Thompson. Two sculptures made of cast iron and one in bronze. The artist often combines wood, iron, and bronze with organic materials.

Paris-born, multi-media artist, Ferjani presents a number of glittery pieces that combine "the superficial and barbaric nature of the human condition" (from the press release). His dangerous objects - grenades, machine guns, gas masks, a rocket launcher, are glamorized by the addition of glitter. Ominous items like a skull, syringes, a mouse trap, feel less threatening when given a sparkly coat.

Ferjani, whose mother worked in couture ateliers for YSL, Lanvin, and Guy Laroche, often works in fashion. He is perhaps best know (in fashion circles, anyway) for two short films he made featuring the girlish collections of designer Erin Fetherston.

The Meaning of Life is on view until July 31st. Read more about the exhibit at the Michali Fine Art Gallery website.

I really wish I could be in Berlin right now. Not only because I LOVE the cool, stylish city with its buzzing, creative energy, but because I'd love to see Bauhaus Model currently on view at the Martin-Gropius-Bau Museum. The show celebrates the 90th(!) anniversary of the creation of the Bauhaus school, founded in Weimar in 1919 by Walter Gropius, Hannes Meyer, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The progressive school focused on arts and crafts, design, architecture, and the concept of mass-producing well-made, simply designed, and affordable everyday items.

Though the school existed only 14 years and relocated twice (first to Dessau and then to Berlin), the Bauhaus influence and philosophy can still be seen today. The timeless, minimal design of objects ranging from tea sets, lamps, chairs, tables, and even buildings, still look contemporary and influence many of today's designers - IKEA immediately comes to mind.

Bauhaus Model is on view until October 4th. See the Martin-Gropius-Bau Museum's website here. New York's Museum of Modern Art contributed pieces to this show, and fortunately for us, will be showing 400 objects from the exhibition here in November. Yay! Read more about Bauhaus Modelhere.

07/28/2009

Team Gallery in Soho has group video show featuring Cory Arcangel, Guillaume Pinard, and Jon Routson going on until July 31st. Read more about it at Team Gallery's website.

Arcangel, a bit of an "It" Boy in the digital art world, shows two colorful, large-scale prints he made using PhotoShop. He also has on view downstairs a video projected on to a large screen in a dark gallery with a cushy couch. Unfortunately, the footage didn't make me want to stay and get comfortable. It's basically a montage of shaky, jumpy YouTube clips featuring piano-playing cats with Schoenberg's Drei Klavierstucke playing over the audio. You can watch the video(s) at Arcangel's website here.

Marseille-based Pinard shows three Flash animated videos. The one in the main gallery, Provisional End, features the adventures of a fly and his frenemy, a stork. It was cute and funny. More info on Pinard here.

Baltimore artist, Routson, features his Spinners series - digital projections of round images rotating on black walls. Seeing a spinning nipple projected on a wall was eye-roll-inducing, but it was definitely better than seeing spinning images of Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin. This gallery could have better served as a shooting gallery. Also in the main room, Routson has a sculpture composed of two speakers sitting atop a wooden beam. The speakers continuously play books on tape. More info on Routson here.

It's sultry here in NYC, and since "sultry" isn't a term I like to use to describe the weather, I decided not to venture far today and stayed south of Houston.

I checked out Black Acid Co-op at Deitch Project atthe 18 Wooster Street location. Created by Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe, this show is a continuation of their two previous projects, Hello Meth Lab In The Sun (for Ballroom Marfa) and Hello Meth Lab With A View (for The Station Miami).

The pair created a cavernous series of interior spaces spanning 3 levels within the gallery. Before entering you are asked to sign a release form. Once inside, you are greeted by crumpled up Chinese newspapers strewn on the floor. You enter and exit each connected space through a large, jagged hole in the wall that seems to have been kicked in for a quick escape. I took my first left and entered a startlingly bright white room lined with wigs. Next stop, I walked up a set of precarious stairs that led to a dimly lit attic space that housed shelves of jars filled with pictures, a sink full of dishes, various fossils, and a taxidermy wolf. The only things missing were the stink of patchouli and the ponchoed hippies smoking pot on the pillows in the corner.

Back downstairs, I followed a hallway that led to the scariest kitchen and bathroom I ever did see. I felt like I stepped into the home of Buffalo Bill, the serial killer from Silence of the Lambs! Beside the kitchen was a burnt out trailer that was very dark and just as eerie as the previous rooms. Further through, I walked into a large, dark, empty blue room with litter on the floor and paint peeling from the walls. Through another hole in the wall you step into a pristine museum-like space with red carpeting and odd photos hanging on the walls. Through another hole is a control room lined with a wall of books and video monitors showing the comings and goings down in the basement. Beside the control room is a small room containing a burnt bed and then there's the kitchen/meth lab. No detail was forgotten in this room. There was so much going on in there. See my pictures below.

Past the kitchen/meth lab, another set of stairs led downstairs to the basement where a Chinese market sold mysterious items with packaging written in Chinese alongside t-shirts emblazoned with porn prints. The video monitors back upstairs in the control room showed shoppers walking along the store's counter.

According to the press release, Black Acid Co-op focuses on the themes of "alchemy in a modern context and community, ritual and psychosis." I think all that went right over my head but I enjoyed the show nonetheless. I often appreciate set design or in this case, environment design, especially when the fabricated settings are well executed, painstakingly created, and authentic feeling. Black Acid Co-op is on view until August 15th. Read more at Deitch website.

Both Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe live and work in New York City. Freeman was born in 1975 in Santa Fe, New Mexico and has had his photography, film work and installations shown internationally. Lowe was born in 1976 in Dayton, Ohio and has been exhibiting his installation "environments" since 2000.

07/27/2009

I'm back in NYC and exhausted but thought I should keep my promise from Friday and post what I saw of Invader's Top 10 show at the Jonathan LeVine Gallery on Saturday. I fortunately arrived at the gallery shortly after it opened at 11am, managed to spend a good amount of time checking out the work, and still made it to catch my ride out of town! Though it was a frantic, mad dash on a Saturday morning, it was totally worth it to catch Invader's fun, poppy, musically-influenced, eye-crossingly dazzling pieces!

The images on view, created from Rubik's Cubes (or Rubikcubism), reminded me of a few things - Georges Seurat's neo-impressionistic work (perhaps this is neo-neo-impressionism!), Devorah Sperber's thread spool pieces, Roy Lichtenstein and pop art in general (with its bright colors and pop culture imagery). As the title of the show suggests, Invader selected his Top 10 album covers and faithfully recreated them using Rubik's Cubes. The albums chosen were: The Cure's Three Imaginary Boys, Nirvana's Nevermind, The Velvet Underground & Nico, Daft Punk's Homework, The Sex Pistol's Nevermind the Bollocks, Supertramp's Breakfast in America, Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother, Iron Maiden, The Clash's London Calling, and The Beatles' Abbey Road.

While the four images grouped together (Nirvana, The Velvet Underground, Daft Punk, and The Sex Pistols) as well as The Clash were immediately recognizable, it took me a moment to recognize The Beatles and the Iron Maiden covers. Though I love The Cure, I couldn't make out the recreation of their Three Imaginary Boys cover. In all honesty, I am not a fan of Pink Floyd and while I was able to make out the cow on their album cover, I did not know whose or which album it was. And since I know nothing about Supertramp I could not make out that cover at all. I had to cheat and use the show's list at the gallery desk to identify the last three :(

There was also an iPod availabe showing a short (a little over 2 minutes) time-lapse video of The Clash and The Beatles reproductions being made. Also on view in the Rubik's Cube designed gallery were six tiled Space Invader characters grouped together, and one little blue guy hiding above the entrance watching visitors come and go. I'm really happy that I got to see Top 10 before it closed. See my photos from the exhibit below. I've provided links to photos of the album covers for easy reference.

In case you missed it yesterday, The New York Times had a lengthy follow-up piece on Dash Snow's passing. Along with the usual facts reported on the young artist, like his familial connections to the art world (his great-grandmother Dominique de Menil founded the illustrious Menil Collection in Houston, and his great aunt, Phlippa, co-founded the Dia Center for the Arts); Snow's co-founding of the graffiti group IRAK; his controversial artwork which showcased drugs, nudity, Saddam Hussein, bodily fluids, etc; his artist friends and their hard partying ways, the piece also provides sad details on the artist's last hours.

For the article, NYT reporters Alan Feuer and Allen Salkin spoke to Snow's grandfather Robert Thurman, as well as some prominent figures in the art world, including Snow's art dealer Javier Peres, and the artist's ex-wife, Agathe Snow. I liked the spot-on quote by Jacob Lewis of Pace Prints Chelsea - “Some people think of him as the Kurt Cobain of the art world. Other people think of him as the Paris Hilton.” Sadly, Snow would have turned 28 today. Read the full article here.

07/24/2009

Wow! How serendipitous! I was going to write a post about Parisian street artist, Invader, simply because I really love his work (I always get a stupid grin on my face when I see one of his pieces), and whilst doing a little research on him, I found that he's currently got a show in Chelsea - that ends Saturday the 25th -- tomorrow!!! I don't know how I missed that! Fortunately, his show is at the Jonathan LeVine Gallery, and after calling them tonight, I've learned they are one of the few Chelsea galleries that is open on Saturday over the summer (I hope I am not mistaken). Hooray!!!

So I am going to rush over to the gallery tomorrow morning before I take off for the weekend and check out the Invader show before it closes. I will post about what I see on Monday, but in the meantime, here's some info about Invader...

He's a street artist from Paris, who in 1998, began a project in which he "invades" public spaces in cities throughout the world with his artwork created with colorful mosaic tiles that make up characters from the vintage Atari video game Space Invaders (and sometimes Pac Man ghosts as well), creating pieces with a digital pixel feel. Currently these works can be found in 40 major cities across the globe, spanning 5 continents!

Top 10, the artist's current solo show at Jonathan LeVine, uses tiles as well as Rubik's Cubes to recreate his personal selection of the top ten album covers of his generation. The Clash's London Calling, The Beatles' Abbey Road, The Sex Pistols' Nevermind the Bollocks, Nirvana's Nevermind, and The Velvet Underground'sWarhol illustrated banana album cover, are all represented using his unique technique of Rubikcubism. Awesome! I really hope I'm able to make it to see this show before it closes. If not, I am going to be one very sad Art Hag :*( Fingers crossed!

Read more at the Jonathan LeVine website here. And check out the artist's very cool website here. It includes a map of cities that have been "invaded" as well as some other samples of his work from this project.

If you are visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art, do not forget to head up to the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden to see Roxy Paine's Maelstrom. New York artist Paine created the 130-foot-long x 45-foot-wide stainless-steel sculpture specifically for the MET's rooftop so that Central Park would serve as a backdrop for his work. The piece looks as if a giant forest creature from Mars has set up camp atop the museum. Visitors are welcome to walk around, under, and through the silvery, tangled branches and contemplate the juxtaposition of Paine's man-made structure with the organic nature and trees just across the way. For more information on Maelstrom, see the MET's website here. And for more on Roxy Paine, click on the James Cohan Gallery website here.

If Maelstrom looks familiar, it may be because you've seen Paine's work before. In 2007, Paine had three sculptures on display in Madison Square Park - Conjoined, Defunct, and Erratic. Read more about these pieces here.